Lack of direct bus service from Blanchardstown to Dublin Airport is pushing people into cars

Quadri Lawal’s route to work in Dublin Airport should be quick and straightforward.

He lives in Blanchardstown. By car, his commute would take around 20 minutes, he says. “This area is very close to the airport.”

But because Lawal travels by bus, it takes three times that. “If you get the bus, it’s going to take more than one hour,” he says.

It’s a two-bus trip for him. From Blanchardstown to Whitehall, he takes the N4, and then he takes either the 16 or 41 northbound, he says. “That is what I do on a normal day.”

On weekends, when he has to be in for 7am, it’s even more of a problem. The only viable option at that hour is a taxi, he says. “That’s €30 to €35.”

Lawal has been doing this for more than a year now, he says. “It’s very unfair.”

Despite a population of 79,969, according to 2022 census data collected by City Population, a population statistics website, there is no direct bus service linking Blanchardstown to Dublin Airport.

The National Transport Authority (NTA) plans to add an orbital route, the N8, to connect the two as part of BusConnects, its remake of the city’s bus network.

That route should be running from late 2025, during Phase 9 of the project, an NTA spokesperson has said.

Lawal, meanwhile, says he is now looking to get a car.

If he does, he would join almost 57 percent of commuters in Blanchardstown who, 2022 census figures show, rely on private vehicles to get to work each day.

That’s roughly in line with Fingal as a whole, and below South Dublin, but a greater share than in Dublin city or Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown.

Under-serviced

In the greater Dublin area, coach services to the airport extend out to Greystones, Leopardstown, Killiney, and Tallaght.

There is no shortage of options to reach the airport if travelling from south to the north, says Billy Linehan, a local resident and a small business consultant with Celtar Advisers. “But the community in Blanchardstown is not being served.”

Blanchardstown is one of the country’s largest suburbs, he says. “It’s growing at an explosive pace.”

Its scale and the large immigrant population are both big reasons why locals frequent the airport, Linehan says. “So, the fact we’re not connected is extraordinary.”

You would think an airport bus from Blanchardstown would be obvious, says Michelle Tobin, who lives in Waterville just outside Blanchardstown. “No direct route. Either two buses or a train and two buses. Or a taxi.”

Tobin is a frequent flyer. She takes between 12 and 15 flights out of Dublin yearly, she says.

Her average car journey is around 15 minutes, from her home to the airport, she says. “The obvious alternative would be to get a bus from town, but it’s very time consuming.”

Lawal says most of his colleagues in the airport drive to work. It’s more reliable than buses, which don’t always run on time, he says. “And if I’m running late, I have to get picked up by my colleagues at a certain location.”

With no route likely in the near future, Lawal says he is now going to buy a car himself. “But I discuss this with my colleagues who drive. We want an alternative, so they could maybe ditch their cars once in a while and take public transport.”

Down the line

Blanchardstown used to be linked to the airport by a private coach, says Billy Linehan. “That was a small single-decker. But I don’t think it was frequent enough to leave an impression.”

It went via Castleknock, Tobin says. “But the schedule was ridiculous, the routing crazy, and overall it was unreliable.”

Nor did it pass through other towns in the Dublin 15 area, like Tyrrelstown or Ongar, Linehan says. “And these are places where there is huge population growth.”

DAA, the Dublin airport authority, has indicated that it wants to increase connectivity to the airport as part of its expansion, says Fine Gael senator Emer Currie. “It’s something that is reflected in their current plans.”

In October, DAA announced that it was seeking expressions of interest from bus operators who would operate scheduled services from the spring of 2024.

A spokesperson for DAA did not respond when asked to comment on this expansion, and whether Blanchardstown would be included in any future routes.

Currie has engaged with the private provider, Dublin Coach, she says. “Last year, they said that they were struggling with bus driver shortages.”

Under the BusConnects network redesign project, Blanchardstown will eventually be connected to the airport via the orbital route N8, says NTA communications officer Michael Sinnott.

This service will run every 30 minutes on weekdays and weekends, Sinnott said. But that won’t be until late 2025, he said.

The BusConnects project faltered in 2023 because of driver shortages, he says. “This has had knock-on implications for the completion date for the full network of routes.”

The driver shortage has eased more recently, Sinnott says.

Linehan says that BusConnects as planned may not turn out to be the answer for people in Blanchardstown because of the route.

“It will be starting from the shopping centre, which is extraordinary, because that’s a traffic problem already,” he says.

The N8 route, which terminates in Clongriffin, will include eight stops from Blanchardstown to the airport.

But what Blanchardstown needs is a direct connection, says Linehan. “There’s a lack of common sense here.”